ABSTRACT This article examines the intersection of ecological challenges, energy transition, and sub-state nationalism in three Mediterranean regions: Sardinia, Corsica, and Catalonia. Building on research on sub-state nationalism, energy justice, and environmental politics, it draws on 55 in-depth interviews with political actors, social movement representatives, and environmental activists, complemented by document analysis. The analysis identifies three dominant frames shaping energy transition debates—referred to as the “three Ss”: sovereignty in Sardinia, sustainability in Corsica, and sufficiency in Catalonia. In Sardinia, energy sovereignty is articulated as resistance to perceived neocolonial dynamics associated with large-scale renewable energy projects. In Corsica, environmental NGOs emphasize sustainable development, reflecting a more institutionalized approach based on legal actions to reconciling ecological protection and economic development, contrasting with a past marked by political violence, including over environmental issues. In Catalonia, a strong tradition of environmental and social mobilization underpins sufficiency-based perspectives, often linked to degrowth and broader critiques of capitalist development. The article argues that these frames are shaped not only by structural political-economic conditions but also by patterns of interaction and alliance among political parties, social movements, NGOs, and civil society actors. More broadly, the findings suggest that Mediterranean regions—often depicted as peripheral and environmentally vulnerable—may function as laboratories for alternative, justice-oriented approaches to the eco-climatic crisis, challenging dominant green growth paradigms.

ABSTRACT A well-established body of knowledge has highlighted the effects of exposure to prolonged political violence on the functioning of individuals and their mental health, yet little is known about the potential moderators of the association between exposure to political violence (EPV) and mental health outcomes. Aiming to fill this gap, the current study investigates the moderating role of perceptions of social capital (PSC), age, and gender of the associations between Palestinian adults’ exposure to prolonged political violence (EPPV) and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). A large-scale survey was conducted among a systematic cluster and stratified random sample of 2934 Palestinian adults (age range: 30–67) from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, using a self-administered questionnaire. The findings show that level of EPPV is associated significantly with the level of PTSS (r = .216, p < .000). In addition, participants’ PSC serves as a moderator of the association between their EPPV and PTSS, by weakening the connection between EPPV and these symptoms (β = -.184; p < .000). Women had lower EPPV than men but had higher levels of PTSS. Research examining gender effects of EPPV could benefit from systematic developmental investigation of gender effects in adulthood in interaction with culture. Neither age nor gender moderated the relationship between EPPV and PTSS. The results of this study have implications for theory development and future research as well as for policy, prevention, and intervention that could strengthen social capital in the Palestinian population and mitigate mental health effects of EPPV. The limitations and implications of the study are discussed.

Abstract We review our recent ConfliBERT language model (Hu et al . 2022 [ConfliBERT: A Pre-Trained Language Model for Political Conflict and Violence]) to process political and violence-related texts. When fine-tuned, results show that ConfliBERT has superior performance in accuracy, precision, and recall over other large language models (LLMs) like Google’s Gemma 2 (9B), Meta’s Llama 3.1 (7B), and Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 (14B) within its relevant domains. It is also hundreds of times faster than these more generalist LLMs. These results are illustrated using texts from the BBC, re3d, and the Global Terrorism Database. We demonstrate that open, fine-tuned models can outperform the more general models in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall, and at a fraction of the cost.

In this article, the philosophical (critical) continuity between ancient Greek skepticism (Pyrrhonism) and postmodern political theory is pointed out. This continuity (philosophical reincarnation) is demonstrated by referring to Sextus Empiricus’ writings on Pyrrhonism, as well as two different approaches that are considered to reflect postmodern political theory in its most salient features, such as anti-fundamentalism: Chantal Mouffe’s “project of radical democracy” and the “art of doubt” in Ulrich Beck’s “reflexive” modernity. The content of the identified continuity is basically the following: Just as the Pyrrhonian philosopher aspires to achieve serenity of spirit by suspending judgment through doubt (“epoche” and “ataraksia”) [epəkē –αταραξία], the postmodern theorist aims to end organized political violence by doubting all modern truth allegations. In other words, the individual hope of the Pyrrhonian philosopher is reproduced in the postmodern mind as a socio-political ideal. In Michel Foucault’s terms, the “regime of truth” or the “politics of truth” is an option that often leads to the “terror of truth”. The politics of doubt, on the other hand, is a peaceful, tolerant alternative. According to the postmodern theorist, skepticism is a highly strategic element of a pluralist (libertarian) democratic order. The intellectual way to make modern democracy even more democratic is, first and foremost, through a skepticism that makes absolutely no concessions to truth allegations. In this respect, the most uncompromising skeptic in the history of philosophy is the Pyrrhonian philosopher. Pyrrhonism is the summit of anti-dogmatism. This means that the postmodern theorist is not so much a postmodern agent. In other words, postmodern political theory is the theory of an innovation that is already obsolete.

A nationally representative longitudinal survey in the USA found a decrease in population-level support for political violence from 2022 to 2023. This individual-level analysis of those data examines associations between the occurrence of 18 specified life events and subsequent change in views on political violence. Participants in the Life in America Survey were members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. Wave 2 of the survey was fielded online May 18-June 8, 2023; all respondents to 2022's Wave 1 who remained in KnowledgePanel were invited to participate. We calculated individual scores for 2022 and 2023 on 35 political violence measures from the first component of an ordinal principal components analysis and computed the difference in scores for individual respondents from 2022 to 2023 to represent a 1-year change in these measures. Our principal outcomes are adjusted mean differences in change scores from 2022 to 2023 between individuals experiencing and not experiencing the 18 life events. The completion rate was 84.2%; there were 9385 respondents. Support for political violence decreased for 19.9% of respondents, increased for 14.2%, and remained unchanged for 65.9%. When events were considered individually in a model that adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and other life events, only "things improved for me financially" was associated with decreased support for political violence among respondents as a whole; "I gave up on politics" was associated with an increase. No event was associated with change among both men and women when they were analyzed separately. Among respondents who reported in 2022 that violence was usually or always justified for at least 1 political objective, no events were associated with change in support for political violence. Among those who strongly approved in 2022 of left-wing violent extremist organizations or movements, "my political beliefs changed a lot" was associated with a large decrease. In this cohort, few life events were associated with changes in support for political violence across the entire population, but there were important subset findings. The findings support interventions to improve measures of economic well-being across the population and to encourage belief change among extremists as political violence prevention measures.

This article explores the transmission of memory by female militants from the Tunisian and Moroccan New Left. In both Maghreb countries, the rise of the New Left was linked to the global momentum of the late sixties that generated new radical political alternatives. Under the regimes of President Bourguiba and King Hassan II, the New Left movements faced intense repression that would ultimately lead to their collapse. Seeking to contribute to the rediscovery of women’s participation in the leftist social movements, this article analyzes the organization of the Tunisian and Moroccan New Lefts, the repression of women, and their civic re-engagement in human and gender rights. The contribution then focuses on the most recent process of memorialization, concerning the past militancy of women and the violence they endured, examining public and intimate memories related to their activism in the Tunisian and Moroccan New Left. Drawing on archival materials, testimonies, interviews, and press sources, this article contributes to a reconceptualization of women’s political engagement in the twentieth century, highlighting contemporary forms of gendered “memory activism” in the Maghreb.

This paper draws on a mixed-method Participatory Action Research project, co-produced by academics and strip club dancers, to deliver a post-pandemic analysis of the UK stripping industry more than a decade after the introduction of Sexual Entertainment Venue (SEV) licensing and the expansion of nil-cap bans. Our research makes three original contributions. First, we foreground disability and neurodivergence, largely overlooked in sex work scholarship, to show how strippers who are systematically excluded from mainstream labour markets cannot simply “find another job” when workplaces close, despite assumptions underpinning anti-strip club campaigns. Second, we expose the symbolic, political, and interpersonal violence generated by such campaigns, particularly from strands of radical feminist activism, revealing how they reproduce the very inequalities they claim to oppose. Third, we trace how market concentration and restrictive policy interact to erode workplace safety, fostering a culture of silence and displacing sex workers into more dangerous and criminalised environments, with disproportionate harm to the most marginalised. Centring dancer-led analysis, we conclude with harm-reduction oriented recommendations for regulation that prioritise labour rights, safety, and the self-determination of those most affected.

This article introduces a special issue marking the fiftieth anniversary of Argentina's 24 March 1976 coup, which inaugurated a brutal civic-military dictatorship and a program to reshape the state, economy, and society. Situating the coup within Argentina's long history of cycles of authoritarianism and democracy, escalating political violence, and regional patterns of military intervention, the special issue highlights both continuities and ruptures. The last dictatorship was exceptional in its systematic repression and state terrorism, as well as in its ambitious economic neoliberalization. Bringing together contributions from political, social, economic, and transnational history, this special issue contributes to the historiography on the interaction between domestic struggles and global forces: the regime's evolving relationship with Washington, the role of international financial institutions, the activism of exiles and human rights organizations, and the Cold War in Latin America. It revisits the dictatorship's ideological foundations, institutional reforms, social transformations, and strategies of international legitimization, while tracing the emergence of resistance and the eventual transition to democracy. Together, the essays underscore the long-term legacies of the dictatorship, including persistent tensions in civil–military relations, debates over memory and justice, and the question of the link between authoritarianism and neoliberalism.

ABSTRACT While the ‘rigidity-of-the-extreme’ research line focuses on deficits in cognitive flexibility (CF), the Significance Quest Theory highlights the motivational quest for significance (QFS) as a central driver of radicalization. Despite calls for integration, these research lines have not been combined, nor have their effects been disentangled across different dimensions of extremism. This preregistered study examines whether an interaction between CF and QFS is associated with ideological (Nationalism), attitudinal (Willingness to Fight for the National Group), and behavioral (Political Violence) extremism. Data were analyzed from 957 Polish adolescents, an age group vulnerable to radicalization. Latent moderated structural equation modeling was employed to test the interaction of CF and QFS. Results showed that the interaction was associated with ideological and behavioral extremism and approached significance for attitudinal extremism. QFS was positively associated with ideological and attitudinal extremism at low CF but with behavioral extremism only at high CF, indicating distinct effects across extremism dimensions. This study expands the empirical body on Significance Quest Theory by demonstrating that CF moderates the relationship between QFS and extremist outcomes and illustrates how their interplay shapes different dimensions of extremism.

ABSTRACT This article examines the entanglement of gender, sexuality, and national identity in the French counter-radicalisation framework. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted between 2016 and 2019, including 78 interviews with prefectural officials and social workers, it analyses how state-led prevention operates through the regulation of gendered behaviours and personal relationships. Since 2015, the fight against radicalisation has increasingly been framed not as a matter of political violence but as a moral and civilisational issue requiring the reform of cultural norms, especially those relating to gender and sexuality. Gender equality, secularism, and republican values are mobilised to justify targeted interventions in working-class, postcolonial neighbourhoods, where women are portrayed as needing protection and men's attitudes toward women become central indicators in radicalisation assessments. By foregrounding everyday gestures and intimate behaviours as “low-level indicators,” the preventive apparatus shifts from identifying ideological positions to scrutinising private life, reinforcing racialised readings of ordinary practices.

ABSTRACT This article examines how far-right extremist groups in Germany appropriate mixed martial arts (MMA) for radicalization, militant training, and transnational networking, and what this reveals about challenges to democratic resilience. It offers one of the first systematic analyses of this underexplored nexus of sport and political violence in political science, demonstrating how combat sports have become embedded in far-right subcultures. Drawing on intelligence reports, court proceedings, investigative journalism, and academic research, the analysis employs qualitative thematic content analysis with triangulated sources to trace the evolution of the phenomenon from early hubs such as the Hak Pao gym to contemporary networks like Knockout 51. Integrating cultural radicalization theory with research on sport, masculinity, and social movements, it situates the German case within a broader European and transnational context, highlighting the roles of actors such as White Rex and Active Clubs as well as competing pro-Russian and pro-American factions. The article concludes by offering policy strategies – grounded in cultural radicalization theory – for prevention, de-radicalization, and repression to strengthen democratic institutions. In doing so, it advances a novel research agenda on the politicization of sport and democratic resilience.

This study examines the impact of political risk insurance on foreign direct investment and Nigeria-United States political economy relations during Muhammadu Buhari’s administration (2015–2023). Employing a quantitative research design, it analyzes data from the World Bank, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, and United States International Development Finance Corporation reports using descriptive statistics and correlation analyses. Neoliberal Institutionalism frames the study, highlighting how institutions like the United States International Development Finance Corporation and Nigeria’s National Insurance Commission mitigated risks, such as political violence and expropriation, fostering bilateral trade valued at 8.1 billion dollars in 2022. Findings of the study reveal a decline in Nigeria’s foreign direct investment inflows from 4.45 billion dollars in 2016 to negative 0.19 billion dollars in 2022, contrasted by stable United States foreign direct investment stock between 5 and 6 billion dollars, supported by a 160 percent increase in United States International Development Finance Corporation portfolio exposure to 780 million dollars by 2023. However, systemic challenges, including corruption, insecurity, and policy inconsistencies, limited broader foreign direct investment growth. The study recommends strengthening Nigeria-United States economic ties through institutional reforms and expanded political risk insurance coverage.

Political Violence in Turkey, 1975–1980. The State at Stake

ABSTRACT This qualitative study examines self-harm, suicidal ideation, and the gendered consequences of violence among Palestinian women in the West Bank, where Israeli military occupation, poverty, and patriarchal control create pervasive psychological distress. Drawing on 30 first-person testimonies from women-only Facebook groups, the study employs thematic analysis to explore how self-injury and suicidal thoughts emerge as embodied responses to political, familial, and economic violence. Findings reveal self-harm as both a language of suppressed pain and a health crisis, often exacerbated by loneliness, domestic abuse, deprivation, stigma, and the erosion of faith. Suicidal ideation is described as a chronic residue of trauma and hopelessness, shaped by persistent insecurity and maternal duty. The results illuminate how structural and interpersonal violence intersect to produce cycles of suffering, silence, and resistance. The study concludes that understanding self-harm and suicide among Palestinian women requires an analysis grounded in the political and social realities of Israeli occupation and gendered oppression.

As environmental crises intensify, environmentally-motivated sabotage and violence (‘eco-tage’ and ‘eco-terrorism’) are likely to play a more prominent role in terrorism discourse. Building on research linking fictional depictions of political violence to public attitudes toward real-world instances, this article examines portrayals of eco-tage and eco-terrorism in influential fiction films from the past five decades. Contrary to claims that the media is too fragmented to shape opinion, it identifies consistent narrative patterns in these films with the potential to influence views on activism, legitimacy, and state repression. Analysing 32 commercially and culturally significant films released between 1972 and 2023 and applying Murray Smith’s Structures of Sympathy framework, the study identifies a strong negative correlation between the severity of violent acts and their moral justification, with more extreme violence typically portrayed as illegitimate. Commercially successful films tend to depict more severe violence, with binary depictions of heroes and villains most common, rather than morally complex portrayals. This narrative polarisation moderately correlates with box office performance and year of release, illustrating a broader trend towards reductive storytelling. This is the first study to systematically assess cinematic portrayals of environmental violence over time, offering a high-level typology to connect narrative trends with cultural and commercial dynamics. Identified groupings generate hypotheses for future research on the extent to which portrayals of environmental violence influence public perceptions, as well as how narrative framing in entertainment media shapes political attitudes and policy responses more widely

Adolescence is a critical period of personal and social development, particularly for Arab-Palestinian adolescents in Israel, whose lives are shaped by persistent political conflict and marginalization, this period becomes particularly challenging. The war that began on October 7, 2023 intensified these challenges, exposing adolescents to increased violence, fear, and social instability. This qualitative study investigated the impact of the October 7 war on Arab-Palestinian adolescents in Israel based on six focus groups involving 34 participants aged 12-18. The findings reveal two central themes: first, the experience of living under ongoing war conditions, which sharpened the adolescents' awareness of their fragile and contested citizenship status; and second, the emotional, social, and educational consequences of being part of a marginalized national minority during a time of crisis. Participants reported heightened fear and insecurity, reduced academic performance, tensions within the Arab community, and increased hostility from the Jewish majority. These experiences are analyzed through the lens of persistent traumatic stress theory, offering insight into the compounded impact of political violence on minority adolescents. By foregrounding the voices of Arab-Palestinian youth, this study contributed to trauma literature in conflict zones by highlighting the lived experiences of a marginalized minority within the conflict state itself. It extends the theory of persistent trauma to this unique context and offers practical recommendations for culturally and politically sensitive interventions that address the compounded effects of exclusion, identity threat, and political violence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Abstract Political violence, including targeted attacks on women, presents significant threats to global stability and human security, yet remains an underexplored domain in time-series forecasting research. This research studies the applicability of state-of-the-art time-series forecasting methods for predicting Political Violence Targeting Women (PVTW) events and fatalities. Leveraging deep learning advancements, we evaluate state-of-the-art methods, including transformer-based architectures, traditional multi-layer perceptron models, and linear approaches such as DLinear, in the context of PVTW data. The analysis highlights the unique temporal patterns of low-intensity and high-intensity events, demonstrating that while transformer-based models outperform linear models overall, simpler architectures, such as the vanilla transformer, often match or exceed the performance of more advanced models like AutoFormer. Building on these insights, we propose a magnitude-decomposition Transformer designed to incorporate domain-specific characteristics of conflict dynamics. The proposed model effectively captures both the smaller, regular patterns and the rarer, high-intensity events in PVTW data. The findings underscore the importance of adapting deep learning architectures to domain-specific challenges and provide critical insights for designing targeted interventions and policies to address societal challenges.

BackgroundConcern for political violence in the United States remains high. The limited information available indicates that approval of specific extreme right-wing organizations and social movements is associated with support for and willingness to engage in political violence, but systematic data are lacking. The study objective is to quantify those associations at the individual level in a nationally representative survey sample.MethodsCross-sectional analysis from Wave 1 of a nationally representative survey of members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, conducted May-June 2022. The exposure is approval (categorized from non-approval to strong approval) of 8 named organizations and social movements, considered individually and together. Principal outcomes are justification for political violence, in general and to advance specific political objectives; willingness to engage in political violence, by type of violence and target population; and expectation of firearm use in political violence. Outcomes are expressed as weighted percentages and adjusted prevalence differences (aPDs, expressed in absolute percentage points (pp)).ResultsThe completion rate was 55.8%; there were 8,620 respondents. After weighting, 50.6% of respondents (95% CI 49.4%, 51.7%) were female, and 62.6% (95% CI 61.4%, 63.9%) were white, non-Hispanic; the weighted mean (SD) age was 48.4 (18.0) years. Few respondents (1.4%, 95% CI 1.0%, 1.8%) strongly approved of the organizations and movements considered together. However, strong approvers were much more likely than non-approvers to consider violence usually or always justified to advance specific political objectives and much more willing to engage in political violence; aPDs frequently exceeded 30% points. To advance a political objective, 29.1% (95% CI 18.4%, 39.8%) of strong approvers were very or completely willing to kill someone, and 18.1% (95% CI 8.5%, 27.7%) thought it very or extremely likely that they would shoot someone; prevalences among non-approvers were 0.9% (95% CI 0.5%, 1.2%) and 0.6% (95% CI 0.3%, 0.9%), respectively.ConclusionsApproval of extreme right-wing organizations and social movements is strongly associated with support for and willingness to engage in political violence. Given continued concern for political violence in the United States and the new possibility that such individuals might join federal law enforcement in large numbers, focused prevention measures are urgently needed.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40621-025-00631-8.

The World Economic Forum initially presented the Global Gender Gap Index in 2006 to assess advancements toward gender equality and evaluate countries' gender disparities across four aspects: economic participation, educational attainment, health outcomes, and political representation. Since then, most countries across the globe have performed relatively well in relation to the first three dimensions towards reducing gender discrepancies. Unfortunately, there is a sluggish pace in bridging gender gaps to allow for women’s participation in the political spectrum. Various efforts have been made to identify challenges and barriers that keep women out of key political decision-making roles. The specific issue of concern is that while the previous research has successfully identified barriers and challenges that prevent women from participating in politics, there is limited research that highlights potential risks associated with women’s participation in politics. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the potential risks associated with women’s political participation. By understanding the risks involved in political participation, the paper intends to identify potential threats, analysing their likelihood and severity, and determine the necessary measures to mitigate those risks. To achieve the aim of this paper, a conceptual review of literature was conducted to highlight key themes that relate to risks associated with women’s political participation. Specifically, scholarly peer reviewed articles and non-scholarly documents such as reports by governmental and non-governmental organizations were reviewed. The paper highlights the following key findings: women participating in politics are likely to be prejudiced. In that regard, evidence suggest that women participating in politics tend to be harshly judged in terms of their performance as opposed to their male counterparts. While political violence has consistently affected both men and women in the political realm, this finding indicates that women who intend to venture into the political arena should be psychologically and mentally prepares to deal with any form of political violence. Political assassination is one of the forms of political violence which may be experienced by those who participate in politics. Sexual harassment has been identified as one of the potential risks that women are like to face once the enter political space. To mitigate against the potential risks that women are likely face in politics, it is imperative that both national and international organisations should draft comprehensive plans to educate the society on how to eschew unjustifiable prejudice against female politicians. At the same time, effective measures should be drafted and implemented to curb political killings, which can dissuade women from participating in politics. In essence, addressing risks associated with political participation can positively contribute towards reduction of gender gap in political representation across the globe.

Political hate speech in Indonesian social media has grown stronger, and its force is typically produced through multimodal resources rather than words alone in everyday online political conversations. Prior studies mainly investigate verbal aggression, emojis, and lexical borrowing separately; therefore, the way these resources interact in political hate remains unclear. This study bridges that gap by studying how English lexical borrowing and emojis combine to build Indonesian political hate speech and reproduce ideology. Applying a qualitative design, thirty publicly viewable hate-speech comments were purposively sampled from X/Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok (ten per site). The dataset was examined with Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis, relating textual structures (macrostructure, superstructure, microstructure) to social cognition and social context. Borrowed items were tagged as loanwords, loan blends, or semantic loans, and emojis were coded by pragmatic function (e.g., sarcasm, mocking, disgust). Findings demonstrate that multimodal hate speech is dominant: comments containing borrowing and emojis are most frequent, while borrowing-only remarks exceed emoji-only ones. Direct English loanwords serve as high-impact evaluative instruments, while emojis systematically increase posture, notably through sarcasm/mockery and disgust-based dehumanization of offenders. At the cognitive level, these tools continuously enact dehumanization as the strongest ideology, alongside anti-democratic and anti-elite/systemic-betrayal ideologies that legitimate contempt and divisiveness in online politics. Thus, Indonesian political hate speech acts as a coordinated verbal–symbolic approach. Although based on a small qualitative dataset typical of CDA, the analysis avoids overinterpreting emojis or borrowed forms by identifying ideological meaning only when these elements recur consistently across hostile contexts, ensuring that stylistic choices are distinguished from multimodal cues that genuinely contribute to political hate. Prevention, detection, and digital-literacy efforts must treat emojis and borrowed terminology as key bearers of political violence, not peripheral indications, and future studies should investigate these tendencies in bigger corpora, across regions, and during election cycles.